If you are a Small Business customer, find additional troubleshooting and learning resources at the Support for Small Business site.

The Interix subsystem provides a fully POSIX-compliant environment that runs as a native subsystem in the Windows kernel. It includes both the Korn Shell and the C Shell and over 350 command-line utilities. If you install Interix Software Development Kit (SDK), you have full support for more than 1,900 UNIX functions.

Installing Interix Subsystem, Base Utilities and SDK from the Command Line

Windows Services for UNIX version 3.0 uses Microsoft Installer for installation. As a result, you can install individual modules of the product from the command line. If previous components of Windows Services for UNIX have been installed, you must include these components in the addlocal parameter of the installation command line, separated by a comma (,). If you do not do so, these products are removed during the installation of Interix. If you install Interix SDK automatically, the Interix subsystem and the base utilities are automatically included in the installation.

Default install path is "\SFU".Note:Services for UNIX should be installed in a directory without spaces in the path to prevent problems with some components of SFU. Microsoft recommends that you install SFU to the default directory.

To include the Product Key as part of the command line, add pidkey="key"
where "key" is the 25 character product key, without dashes. Note: If you are installing the base utilities with the /qb option, you will be required to choose whether you want to enable setuid behavior for Interix programs. (If you are using the /q option, setuid behavior will be disabled by default.) The choice you make will affect both system security and how certain Interix programs behave.

According to the POSIX standard, a file has permissions that include bits to set a UID (setuid) and set a GID (setgid) when the file is executed. If either or both bits are set on a file, and a process executes that file, the process gains the UID or GID of the file. When used carefully, this mechanism allows a nonprivileged user to execute programs that run with the higher privileges of the file's owner or group. When used incorrectly, however, this can present security risks by allowing nonprivileged users to perform actions that should only be performed by an administrator. For this reason, Windows Services for UNIX Setup does not enable support for this mechanism by default.

You should enable support for setuid behavior only if you are sure you will be running programs that require support for this behavior. Even if you do not enable support for setuid behavior when installing Windows Services for UNIX, you can enable it later.

A reboot will be required.
Note: If installing from a telnet prompt, where no GUI is available, or via a script, modify the command line by changing the /qb to /q. This will install without any user interaction at all. By default the setuid behavior will be disabled. See the install.htm on the Services for UNIX CD.

Note: The addlocal parameter to msiexec show above is case and space
sensitive. Installation will fail if the exact case above is not followed.

Note: These options may also be installed from the Installation Wizard by selecting a custom installation.